Competition is a key word used commonly by Greek politicians to justify the reduction of salaries and pensions of Greeks. The problem is not the salaries and pensions but the hidden taxes and extremely high taxes that companies must pay to hire a Greek that detrimental to competition.

In the Greek Sunday newspapers TO BHMA and KATHIMERINI of July 6th 2014, an article was unleashed that should have been revealed by the Troika long ago, with a list of 200 taxes that are being collected on behalf of third parties!

Some of the hidden taxes in addition to the 23 percent VAT sales tax!

Plain paper tax for printers and photocopies

Another photocopy tax of 4 percent

Movie tickets include 12 percent

Rail road train tickets include 2 percent

Engineer tax of 3 percent for buildings

A sound and video reproduction tax of 6 percent

A tax on companies performing public projects of 3 percent

A real estate tax of 0.775 percent on property values

A 0.2 percent tax on imported candles

A tax on loans of 0.6 percent

A tax of one or two percent on the private school tuition

Three Euros per application of weddings, baptisms, deaths, and divorces

Rental tax percent undisclosed toward a public employee fund

Another rental tax of 3.6 percent and a stamp tax amount undisclosed

Passenger tickets on ships include 5 cents for the mooring employees

Passport (5 year) renewal includes a social security tax of 20 percent and 22 Euros of postal charges even though the passport must be collected in person

Only a few of the third parties are mentioned in the article. The article does state that even the government does not know how many hidden taxes exist as they cannot list them all.

Caveat Emptor and Caveat Venditor are not applied in the Greek market. This is also why Greeks Pay More for Services and Products.

The Greek government or state charges a whopping forty (40) percent towards social security benefits that was recently lowered by a ridiculous four (4) percent to motivate companies to pay it. The social security is not a tax mind you but a fund that is supposed to provide workers with insurance coverage, retirement, and unemployment benefits however it is an expense to businesses that increase the cost of labor.

The reasoning to reduce salaries was based on the fact that if you hired an employee for 1000 Euros per month, the company is actually paying 1400 Euros per month in labor costs.

Now that salaries begin at 400 Euros per month the government has realized that they are not collecting taxes at all but have increased the use of illegal employment while destroying the internal economy that is a primary source of building the social structure.

The real problem of competition in Greece is not the salaries but the hidden cost of taxes.

In reality, the reduction of salaries and pensions is anathema to use a Greek word to the economy because it does not allow more money to circulate which in turn would provide more internal market growth. More internal market growth will result in more employment and more taxes being collected even if the taxes are of a lesser amount. The end result would be a more stable economy.

Unless a new line of thinking by both the people and the politicians of Greece are affected, Greece will never be a competitive country.